Crosswalk Complaints
Walking to campus can be a tricky endeavor. It's bad enough that there is the lack-of-parking bug that has infected the majority of our fellow commuter students (I'm a recovering commuter now that I live closer to campus), but some of the symptoms seem to be road rage. Making one's way across the south-west crosswalk by the WB building and 1200 South becomes a gamble. While I start my way toward the other side, I find myself staring down the oncoming traffic--daring them to keep speeding down that road right at me. As I finish my journey to the other side of the road safely, I see a fellow student glance quickly at the traffic tuck his head, wave at the stopped vehicle, then run across to the other side as if the stopped car was doing him a favor. C'mon man! We pedestrians have rights! Especially at crosswalks!
I'm amazed at my charged response and I think it stems from my two-year stint of living in inner-city Baltimore. I didn't drive very often while living there, but the times that I did were full of emotionally-charged memories of stabbing incessantly at the horn, jockeying for position with the bullying public transit buses, and, most importantly, glaring at the purposefully ignorant pedestrians and their nonchalant attitude of crossing the road at any place and time when they so desired with no consideration to traffic. I found this practice to be common in the lower-income areas of the city when (usually) African-Americans with their black liquor bags would meander into the middle of the road and begin a lively discussion with somebody on the other side for a full minute, then slowly finish their journey across. After all, these were their roads, and anybody else using them would be accommodated at their convenience.
Perhaps I feel that I've in a sense paid my dues. Or maybe I've missed my morning happy pills. Either way, the next time when I enter those white parallel lines, you can just wait a whole ten seconds, commuters. Because in those ten seconds, I own the road.
I'm amazed at my charged response and I think it stems from my two-year stint of living in inner-city Baltimore. I didn't drive very often while living there, but the times that I did were full of emotionally-charged memories of stabbing incessantly at the horn, jockeying for position with the bullying public transit buses, and, most importantly, glaring at the purposefully ignorant pedestrians and their nonchalant attitude of crossing the road at any place and time when they so desired with no consideration to traffic. I found this practice to be common in the lower-income areas of the city when (usually) African-Americans with their black liquor bags would meander into the middle of the road and begin a lively discussion with somebody on the other side for a full minute, then slowly finish their journey across. After all, these were their roads, and anybody else using them would be accommodated at their convenience.
Perhaps I feel that I've in a sense paid my dues. Or maybe I've missed my morning happy pills. Either way, the next time when I enter those white parallel lines, you can just wait a whole ten seconds, commuters. Because in those ten seconds, I own the road.
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